Actress Neetu Chandra says that with her potential, she deserves to be in a film opposite any of the three superstar Khans of Bollywood.
Neetu started her career in Bollywood with the Priyadarshan movie “Garam Masala”. She then featured in films like “Traffic Signal”, “Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!” and “Rann”, and worked with filmmakers like Ram Gopal Varma, Madhur Bhandarkar and Dibakar Banerjee, to name a few. In the last few years, she has not appeared in many films.
Asked what went wrong in her career, she says there are not many offers that came her way and in her personal life, she went through a tough time.
“I lost my father four years ago. He was suffering from cancer. So in a way, I was also focusing on my family. I have a production house and one of our productions ‘Mithila Makhaan’ even won a National Award. I have done a Greek film. So yes, I am working towards quality stuff, but unfortunately, not a lot of offers came my way the way I wanted it to be.
“I surely deserve to be in a Shah Rukh Khan– or a Salman Khan-starrer film. But my talent has not been utilised in the cinema properly. Since I do not come from a film family and have no Godfather, of course, my journey is slow, but steady,” Neetu told IANS in a telephonic interview from Los Angeles.
Neetu recently appeared in the music video of “Banjarey”, sung by Pakistani singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan.
It’s interesting that the actress had entered the entertainment industry with a music video of “Mera babu chhail chhabila” and also “Sajna hai mujhe”.
Asked what made her agree to be part of a music video again, Neetu said: “Firstly, I loved the song, and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan is a great singer. After listening to the song for the first time, I kept it on a loop, and the melody was growing on me.
“It was a coincidence that Shruti Vora, who directed the video, was the co-director of my first video ‘Mera babu…’, where she took my audition and guided me throughout to act well in the video. I didn’t know anything that time because I was as young as 16 years old. So when I got to know that she will be directing this one, for me, it was such an exciting moment to collaborate with her.
“I loved the whole experience of shooting the video.”
Neetu feels the Bollywood world is under a wrong impression that she has shifted to the south Indian film industry.
“I have done some Tamil films and people started thinking that I have settled in the south. It is wrong. I know visibility matters in today’s time, especially the way business of cinema is changing. Earlier, I had no team to present me, to make my work visible to the film fraternity. Thankfully, now I have one.
“I am open to work with any filmmaker, anywhere — be it Bollywood or Hollywood. I just hope the offers come my way,” said the anchor of the musical show “Rangoli” on DD National.
With most youngsters heading towards web shows and satellite channels, when asked what made her choose a show on Doordarshan, Neetu replied: “I think the closer to your roots you are, the global you go… Because we, are living in a global village.”
